death penalty

People who support the death penalty would argue that the death penalty deters people from murder because they are scared of being sentenced to death. It might scare some people, but the vast majority of murders would kill anyway, for most murders are not rationalizing their actions. Also, according to some being sentenced to life is a worse punishment than the death penalty for death would put them out of their misery. The life sentence is just as bad as a death sentence, so why have the death penalty at all? The death penalty is not beneficial. It only creates problems. Within the United States over the years there has been much improvement with the death penalty. Many states have abolished the death penalty altogether. Seventeen states have abolished the death penalty, while thirty-three states still have the death penalty. Although there are more states with the death penalty than not, it is improvement because it’s better that not all the states have the death penalty. The death penalty is diminishing in the United States. “More than half the U.S. public now prefers alternatives over the death penalty as the best punishment for the crime of murder.” In the United States the methods of executions we use include lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, hanging and firing squad, but the most commonly used method is lethal injection. Only one state, Oklahoma uses the firing squad as a death sentence and only two states use hanging, New Hampshire and Washington. Lethal Injection is looked upon as the most painless method. “In states that use the three-drug protocol the inmate is injected with sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, anesthetics intended to put the inmate to sleep. Presumably after a member of the intravenous team determines the inmate is sufficiently unconscious, he is then injected with pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the entire muscle system and stops the inmate's breathing. In most...